MS to launch App Store, MobileMe rivals February?
updated 12:40 pm EST, Mon January 19, 2009
MS SkyBox Next Month
Microsoft is poised to use February's Mobile World Congress to unveil a set of online mobile services that would be its own equivalents to Apple's Internet components for the iPhone. In addition to confirming the existence of SkyMarket, a dedicated app store for Windows Mobile devices, alleged sources for Neowin claim Microsoft will use the phone show to introduce SkyBox, a mobile sync service to backup and share calendars, contacts, e-mail and photos between devices not unlike Apple's MobileMe.
The specific workings of the service aren't known, though SkyBox will purportedly be device-independent and so won't require Windows Mobile to access on the road. A business edition nicknamed SkyLine will let companies use their own domain names through a centrally shared Exchange service.
Microsoft is also reportedly set to introduce Windows Mobile 6.5 at the expo and is believed to be giving the platform a reworked home screen with a hexagonal interface to more easily navigate top-level features such as music. Little else is known besides its inclusion of the more advanced Internet Explorer 6 Mobile that is so far only optional, but phones carrying new Windows Mobile versions often ship several months after Microsoft's first public showing.
The news potentially rules out any plans for Windows Mobile 7 to appear in 2009; the next-generation OS is believe Microsoft's first to be built from scratch for non-stylus touch.
Amazing
01/19, 01:32pm reply
Wow the shear amount of innovation that comes out of M$ is Amazing, I can only wait for some type of mobil phone maybe a Zune phone that sounds good.
handydan
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Joined: Nov 2001
Amazing
01/19, 01:32pm reply
Wow the shear amount of innovation that comes out of M$ is Amazing, I can only wait for some type of mobil phone maybe a Zune phone that sounds good.
handydan
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Joined: Nov 2001
hah...
01/19, 01:43pm reply
will they work as flawlessly as Vista?
dwoodruff
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Joined: Jul 2006
Re: hah
01/19, 01:48pm reply
Will they work as flawlessly as MobileMe? Oh, wait, right...
Oh, and what's flawed about Vista? Got any specifics or just passing on the same stuff from everyone else who's never used it?
And, gee, when people complain about OS X issues, the defenders always say "No OS is going to be bug-free".
testudo
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Sad
01/19, 04:57pm reply
While it's true that this appears to be a blatant rip-off of MobileMe, the sad thing is that it will probably work better and faster and be more feature rich than MobileMe. Simply basing the email and calendar on Exchange webmail will be far more useful than MMs equivalents.
ender
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Just remember that ...
01/19, 06:06pm reply
... millions of Vista downgraders/won't upgraders can't be wrong, testtube baby.
And it seems Apple fixed MobileMe and Microsoft fixed Vista. Oh, wait, right ...
Foe Hammer
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Re: Re: hah
01/19, 06:07pm reply
"Will they work as flawlessly as MobileMe? Oh, wait, right..." And how is MS's track record on flawlessly working products? Oh, wait, right...
"Oh, and what's flawed about Vista? Got any specifics or just passing on the same stuff from everyone else who's never used it?" Specifics... MS doing a "Mojave Experiment" tv commercial, surprising the people at the end that THIS is Vista or how about e-mails from MS Management that Vista, although delayed, was still not ready for prime time release. http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisedesktop/archives/2008/03/microsoft_owns.html
MeandmyMac
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re: Foe Hammer
01/19, 06:57pm reply
"And it seems Apple fixed MobileMe and Microsoft fixed Vista. Oh, wait, right ..."
Vista is being Fixed.. haven't you seen Windows 7, i mean Vista SP3 yet?
eldarkus
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Re: Re: hah
01/19, 06:58pm reply
You call those specifics? The commercial actually proves my point. The whole concept of that thing was that most people never even touched vista, they just heard horror stories and believed them. The fact that they didn't recognize they were using Vista, not "mojave", was the point.
Of course, I couldn't expect you to understand such high-minded concepts. "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" is so much cleverer.
As for the emails, wow, emails. I got emails from Apple saying MobileMe wasn't ready, too. What's the point?
So, it comes back to "Have you even used the OS, or just slamming it because its Microsoft but you really don't know what you're talking about!"
testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001
Re: Re: hah
01/19, 07:04pm reply
Specifics... MS doing a "Mojave Experiment" tv commercial, surprising the people at the end that THIS is Vista or how about e-mails from MS Management that Vista, although delayed, was still not ready for prime time release.
Those aren't specifics. In fact, they're lousy examples. The whole point of the "mojave experiment" was to show that the bad press around Vista was more about the name and the bashing it got, not from actual issues from users or problems they had.
And the second is what, an email? Wow! I got one from Apple that said MobileMe wasn't delayed, but wasn't ready for prime time. Sorry about that.
So, again, what about vista has shaken your ground. What software/hardware didn't work? (Wait, do we count software that doesn't work, because when Apple does it, they're "modernizing the system" or some c***). What kept crashing?
testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001